Wednesday, March 18, 2009

10 Things To Do Before You Become A Parent

I heard a song once - one of those songs that you hear on the radio in someone else's car, or over the soundsystem at the grocery store - that had a refrain about some woman regretting the fact, in her middle age, that she'd never driven a sports car around Paris, or something to that effect. I can't remember exactly; what stuck with me, mostly, was the thought that well, I'd been to Paris. So - I thought - I probably wouldn't have that regret. Which, as it turned out, was quite right: I'm not yet in my middle age, but I can see it on the horizon, and I'm happy to report that there seem to be no travel-related regrets forthcoming.

That said, I do have some regrets, of a sort; they're just not of the bucket-list variety. My regrets - such as they are, now that I'm a parent, with responsibilities and accountabilities and very limited ability to do as I please - are more of the man, I wish I'd appreciated that when kind of regret. (Regret is a bit strong. Let's call these retrospective yearnings.) I was thinking about this yesterday, as I lay on the couch with a cranium-rattling headache, trying to amuse the baby by weakly nudging a rattle toward him with my foot. In that moment, the idea that I might ever regret something like not being able to take off to Paris for the weekend struck me as absurd. Paris, schmaris. What I regretted most in that moment was the fact that in my pre-motherhood life I did not appreciate the luxury of being able to take to my bed when I was sick. Which got me thinking: if I knew then what I know now, what would I have done more often or appreciated more before I became a parent?

1. Get sick, and like it: I know, being sick is supposed to be a miserable thing. But is it, really? Assuming that your symptoms are not too brutal, and/or that you're able to medicate yourself into a happy stupor, there is much to enjoy about being sick. You stay in bed all day, drinking hot steamy drinks and slurping chicken soup and watching bad game shows and soap operas and Dr. Phil and maybe thumbing through some tabloids and napping and just generally enjoying the Vicks VapoRub-scented experience of convalescence. If you live with someone - and especially if that someone is a spouse or romantically beholden to you in anyway - you can bitch and whine at them and they will bring you more soup.

You cannot do this when you have small children. There are no sick days when you have small children. When you have small children, you cannot take to your bed and watch television and huff VapoRub. You have to parent. So what it you're dripping snot on the head of your wailing baby? That baby isn't going to feed/soothe/change himself. You're on duty, bitch. Deal with it.

2. Take naps. Take lots of naps. The kind where you doze off on the couch before dinner, the kind where you nod off at your desk at work, the kind where you just say screw Monday and go back to bed for an hour. Because what I said above about being on duty? That applies 24-7. Which means, no, you can't just take twenty minutes to "rest your eyes." Unless the baby is having his own nap, in which case you're welcome to try to nap, but I'm guessing that you might want to shower/bathe/eat, too, and you've probably only got forty minutes, so.

3. Shower/bathe. Enjoy your showers. Take lots of them, and make them long and hot. Also, baths, if you're a bath person. Long hot baths at all hours of the day. Twice a day, even! With bubbles and oils and magazines.

Oh, sure, it's not like you're forced to stop bathing and showering when the kids come along, but you will find that your bathing/shower regimen is seriously curtailed. You'll skip days - those days when eating and sleeping seem more pressing than cleanliness - and when you finally do get around to performing some ablutions? You'll be scrambling through that shower in less than three minutes because the baby is in his crib, shrieking, or you'll be splashing briefly in a lukewarm tub because the hot water tank got drained when the toddler's tub needed to be refilled, twice, after she a) brought a roll of toilet paper into the tub, because b) her 'poo-poo was coming.'

You will miss long, hot, leisurely baths and showers, I promise you. Enjoy them now.

4. Have a drink or two at lunch. You know how, sometimes, you go out for lunch on a Saturday and someone says, why don't weorder a bottle of wine/get margaritas/have a beer? and you spend the afternoon eating and talking and drinking and working up a delicious buzz? And it's, like, totally fine, because you know that you can go home and have a nap and a bath before thinking about what your evening looks like? Yeah, you can't do that when you have small children, because a) you're probably not having lunch anywhere that sells a decent bottle of wine, and b) naps? baths? Ha. See above.

5. Cultivate and appreciate a hangover. Hangovers suck, right? Wrong. Hangovers only suck if you can't take a day off to recover from them. Hangovers, properly tended to, are similar to being sick, only with a little added frisson of shame to make things interesting. When you don't have small children, you can spend your hangover day in bed, watching television and eating potato chips and warding off that buzz of guilt with Oreos and chocolate milk. When you do have small children, you can't do this, for reasons that I've already stated. But you're probably not drinking all that much, either, so it's kind of a moot point.

6. Stay up late/sleep in. See above re: hangovers/being sick. You just really don't get to spend a lot of time in bed when you have small children.

7. Have sex whenever you want. Ditto.

8. Spend a rainy day watching an entire season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There's a theme emerging here, I know: things that you do while curled up in blankets on the sofa or in bed while eating junk food. I can't recommend these activities highly enough. I miss them desperately. If you asked me, would you like to take the family on a Caribbean vacation, or would you like to spend a week, by yourself, just laying around watching DVDs and reading books and eating cookie dough? I would really have to think about that.

Because, seriously: Paris, Barcelona, Tulum, whatever. Whenever I do get around to going back to those places, I'll probably want to take the kids anyway, because I want to see it all through their eyes and I want them to see what I've seen, blah blah blah. But a day off, where I do nothing but lounge and nap and snack and just generally indulge in some lazy-assed laziness? That place, I want to go to there. ALONE.

9. Eat chocolate chip cookie dough (or guilty pleasure food of choice) without any regard for who might be watching. I love cookie dough. I think that cookie dough is better than cookies. But I would strongly prefer that my three-year old eat, say, apple slices and cheese, rather than cookie dough, and so I conceal my cookie dough habit from her as best I can, with varying degrees of success. Just yesterday I was trying to nibble a hunk of chocolate chip cookie dough, torn from the end of a Pillsbury cookie dough package, when I was confronted by my daughter, who demanded to know what I was eating. It's cheese, I told her. Spicy cheese. The kind you don't like.

Those look like chocolate, she said, pointing at the chocolate chips.

They're raisins, I said. Spicy cheese raisins. Then I shoved the rest of it in my mouth and swallowed before she could get a closer look. It kind of ruined my enjoyment of the experience, quite frankly.

Or a long hot bath. Or some uninterrupted cookie dough indulgence. Or a day off. I wish that I'd known that back in the days when I could have them all for free.

But now you know. You're welcome.

(Parents: what would you add to this list? Would you take Paris or the Caribbean over Lounge Week? Am I the only lazy-assed layabout out here in momosphere-land? Or would you one-up me and demand two weeks? You know, enough time to watch all back-seasons of Lost and maybe also Battlestar Galactica?)

So true. Alone, alone, alone. All I want is a day to be totally alone in my house (or, frankly, anywhere) to laze about and do whatever I please. Or do absolutely nothing on my own schedule.

Related, of course... one thing I miss is the way we used to just spontaneously decide to go out for dinner at 8:00 at night. No biggie, just don't feel like cooking, let's go out to our favorite neighborhood place.

Now? Ha. Every now and then we can bring the toddlers to the early bird special (woo, early bedtime!), but it isn't exactly the same...

Similar to #4, I would spend as much time as possible with my husband. Just hanging out. Because after kids, when you don't get much (read: any) one-on-one time, you forget how much you like each other.

This is very nerdy, but play a MMPOG until you're sick of it. I'm not allowed to pick up my World of Warcraft habit again, because GeekBaby would go unfed, unwatched, and unbathed. Until he was old enough to play, and then I'd probably buy him an account and power level him. (I'm mostly kidding. Mostly.)

Also, speaking as someone who has been sick a lot, being sick sucks donkey balls and I hate hate hate hate it and I can't imagine wanting to enjoy it. Ditto for hangovers, but at least those are within my power to avoid.

I would add one....go out to eat at lots of nice restaurants with linen tablecloths...and have LEISURELY meals...with several courses. And wine. And dessert. And coffee. Spend hours. Even when at home...really enjoy your meals.

Nowadays most of my meals are shoveled in my mouth over the kitchen sink. If I do happen to go out, its to a chain restaurant. And I eat with one hand while the other hand blocks grabby hands, or shoves morsels into the kids gaping maw, or grabs silverware back, or retrieves things off the floor, or moves breakables out of harms way, or shakes a rattle, or wipes a dribbling chin.

As someone who will be married in a matter of weeks and wants to start having a family within the year, I will be taking this advice to heart (though I don't forsee many naps until after the wedding, of course!).

I almost openly wept at the Buffy marathon day mention...big fat tears, too. Now I have to settle on things that we might want to watch together...Star Trek. Star Wars. But no Buffy, it might give him nightmares or something. One day, we'll tell him what his name means (his name is Xander) and we'll sit down and watch it together. Until then, it's Empire Strikes back 500 times. And that's when I'll watch for a bit (because it is pretty awesome) and then take care of your # 2 (nap)...

Oh, I so hear you on all of these things. I try to tell them to my friends all the time (but then they think I am complaining about how hard my life is. I'm not. I just want them to enjoy the things they have now.) I miss being able to go to the store without having to get a child ready, strapped into the carseat, taken out of the carseat, etc. etc. I will I had appreciated the ease of my life (does that make sense?) before I had to constantly consider another little person.

I also wish I would have appreciated my showers and would have tried to had more naps. Aw, sleep...

1. Enjoy talking on the telephone without being interrupted every .2 seconds by some small person.

2. Really enjoy not having to be a short order cook on any occasion.

3. Watch TV all dang day long. The stuff that you'd feel uncomfortable having on if a kid was in the room.

4. Savor being able to take your good ole time on the toilet. BY YOURSELF.

5. This doesn't pertain to everyone, but a lot of parents will agree: Enjoy being able to walk through the house when it's dark and not step on some unidentified toy that's trying to kill you.

6. Also, remember what it feels like to have a clean house. Remember how sometimes it feels like you don't have a lot of time to keep it that way. And then realize that with kids it's that feeling x100 and your house is still never clean.

7. Spontaneous plans. Wanna go to the movies? Sure! No acrobatics about finding a sitter, etc.

Kids are great, but yes... be ready to give up the small stuff. At least for the next 15 years. :)

Yep, I whole-heartedly agree with this entire list. I think I'd add shaving my legs to the long hot shower item. There is never any time to shave legs when a baby is screaming on the other side of the bathroom door... I almost feel like a bad mom for so desperately wanting a day (or a week, or maybe two) off, but this would really be my dream vacation right about now...

I'm not a running fanatic, but I miss the days of waking up on a weekend, enjoying a leisurely cup of joe with the husband, strapping on my running shoes, and heading for a nice long slow jog. Or swim. Hike. Bike Ride. I would take 2 hours, 3 hours, and then come home and soak in a bath, eat to quell my ravenous hunger, and feel so energized and fab. Before I got surprise pregnant I was training for a half marathon. Now I can't do that because (a)I don't have 2-3 hours for exercise, (b) I can't be totally wasted in body anymore, I need energy to hold my enormously huge child, and (c) the nursing boobies hurt when they bounce!

I still run, but shorter jags. I take him sometimes, in a regular stroller (we don't have a jogger,) or in a front pack on a hike (27 pounds - oof.) I still enjoy coffee with the hub, but in a "It's your turn to get up and chase down the kid" kind of way. And much as I love finally having boobies, I'm ready to say goodbye to the C cups and hello to my little As. I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SAY THAT!

2. When Noodle was an infant she spent her days in daycare while Hubs & I both worked. Once he decided to work at home & then keep her at home with him - I mourned a little bit. While she was in daycare I could take a few mental health hours off of work, come home & lay on the couch for a bit. I could take a sick day & lay on my bum while the daycare center watched her. Granted it rarely worked, most of my sick days were spent at home with a sick child ~ but still. The option was at least THERE. Now I come to work sick as a dog just to get away from the needy children! Don't they know I'm sick?!?

I wouldn't trade my children for anything - but I would pawn them off on a grandma/aunt/cousin/hobo for a day just to lay on my couch & watch back episodes of Supernatural while eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

The luxury of sitting satisfied in a clean house...and not just the 10 minutes before company comes. Before kids, I used to love spending an afternoon getting things really clean and then knowing that I had nothing left to do so I could indulge in any lazing about or cookie dough/beer/wine/cheese enjoyment, guilt free. Now I take the lazing about when I can get it and try to ignore the mess.

Accept spontaneous invitations. Appreciate it when you have to make the tough last-minute choice whether to go for sushi or to that cool modern dance troupe only in town for tonight. Do this on a work (school) night.

Trying not to howl with laughter from my office about the spicy raisin cheese. I have a 4-month-old, and all I got to say is Amen, sister. The times I've said to myself, "Wow, I wish I would have slept more/relaxed more/enjoyed not sitting in my office pumping my breasts" are innumerable.

As a mother of four whose children are all grown up, I still feel as if I am sinning when I do any of the things on that list, which is ridiculous! My God! I spent thirty something years raising those children, yes, 24/7.I think the thing I craved the most was time by myself. And now that I do get some of that, I realize how much I suffered from a lack of it when the children were at home, even when they were older.I luxuriate in solitude.

Enjoy eating meals with two hands. Try it sometime: scoot your plate away from you about six inches, hold a cat in your dominant hand, and try to eat with your opposite hand. It's hard!

Also ditto the PPs who mentioned enjoying a nice, long, PRIVATE bathroom trip.

And taking your time at a nice restaurant. Order dessert, b/c there will come a time when you only get dessert on date nights, b/c any other time, you have to shovel down your supper and hurry out the door before your toddler flips the table over and eats the salt on the next guy's table.

Just add being able to read whenever I want for however long I want to that list, along with being about to pick and travel whenever and whereever I want and you've got my top 12 reasons for chosing not to have children. Ok, it really was a long well thought out decision, but stuff like this played a major role in it.Great post, thanks!

Ah I love being a single parent -- these are all the things I plan and do when the little one is at his dad's! It only happens once a month but still, it's brilliant! I recommend getting a divorce so you can ship the kids off to his house at the weekend!!

I could not agree more. I miss not getting out of bed on Saturday until I'm darn good and ready to. I miss just lying in bed watching TV in on those mornings until I had to get up to go to the bathroom. I would definetely take a day for myself if I could just to veg out at home.

I think you pretty much covered it. You could have made it short and sweet and told the childless folk to stay in bed eating junk food and watching crappy television while you can, bathing optional. Aaaah, memories.

About a month ago, I was at my step mother's house sans children and I spent 7 glorious hours in my pajamas, covered in blankets on her futon while eating mushroom pizza, drinking wine and watching season four of Weeds. It was glorious.

I just wanna say..quick, because the gremlin is starting to wake up...oops, she's grumbling. Back in a min...

OK back. It's true it's tough. And I know I will learn more about tough because I only have one so far. But I wasted enough time before the babe, and saw things through the same-coloured lenses for a few years of adulthood. The years were spinning by. I hardly ever saw a sunrise (guess why I do see them now) and I didn't get enough sleep simply because I was too dumb to go to bed.

This is a good list, and there will be many days when I feel its truth acutely. But if I didn't have the gremlin to force the issue, I couldn't be trusted to propel my life forward in new and interesting ways. I'd have been a perpetual adolescent, without the angst to make it seem meaningful.

My new challenge is to make sure she knows how to propel.

Spicy raisin cheese sounds pretty good to me. I wonder if there's such an actual thing...

I miss being able to run errands by myself. It's really difficult for me to go to the grocery store with a 4 year old tugging at my jacket and a 5 month old wailing to get out of his carseat.I also miss being able to sleep in until I wake up. Doesn't necessarily need to be until noon, just until I get out of bed WITHOUT little hands lifting my eyelids to see if I'm awake back there, or my son screaming his head off and my husband dropping him on my chest asking me to please deal with it.

I do get alone time after the kids go to bed (see, 9pm), and then I can shower, lay around and watch something that's not Baby Einstein, but at that point, it's when I realize that I should go to bed, since I'll have to be up at the crack of dawn./sigh.Yeah.

Leisurely shopping - I miss being able to take my time (i.e. perusing the tomatoes to pick the best ones, debating over which type of pasta to get). Now I find myself grabbing whatever is within arm's reach just to get to checkout before my little monkey starts screaming.

Ok, one thing I have to add to this list is to enjoy BEING QUIET. Not like taking a vow of silence quiet. I mean, I wish I had enjoyed more the days where I did not have to spend every waking second singing a song, reading a rhyming book out loud, shushing a fussy baby, screaming "Watch out for the baby," or admonishing various and sundry activities that big boys do not do in the house. Honestly, by the end of the day I hate the sound of my own voice.

My daughter is with her dad right now. Yesterday I drank wine with my girlfriend and watched movies. Today, I'm getting a haircut and going to bed early. I really wanted to be on my bed and eat junk food alone all night but my hair is ridic long and let's be serious, you don't have time to be keeping long hair as a mom! le sigh.

I want to read a book from cover to cover without having to stop to answer questions or get anybody a yogurt or kiss a boo-boo. It's not that I mind the questions or the yogurt or the boo-boos, it's just that I can't remember what uninterrupted reading felt like.

Lounge Week wins, hands down. Even though I adore my children and spending time with them (funny that I even feel like I need to say that first), I feel like they have robbed me of my weekends. That special time when you don't hve to go to work and can do anything you want. EXCEPT when you have kids. Only 16.5 years till they're out of the house and I get my weekneds back to myself...but who's counting!

I'd like to be able to finish anything! Be it a nap, dishes, or even getting fully dressed sometimes. (No time for socks today) I would love to be able to finish things once I've started. It would be great to be able to start loading the dishwasher and not be pulled away buy the "giant dirty diaper disaster" or if I do get pulled away to be able to go back where I left off. But nope! Once my daughter gets her fingers in me she won't let go.

What about being able to grab your wallet & keys & just GO somewhere? Whether it's shopping, or for a walk, or to the library, or whatever, kids turn everything into a major expedition. Simple errands take at least three times as long with kids along, and you end up schlepping a huge bag of the necessary kid supplies.

You dream big!! My current wish is for three uninterrupted hours alone, in my house. I do get some me-time away, a little bit, now, but TIME ALONE IN MY HOUSE FOR LONGER THAN AN HOUR... This is my dream. ;)

But I miss the gory Sci-Fi shows that I love to watch. My 7 year old son just asks way too many questions, and has for four years, and then has nightmares...

And sleeping until I wake up, and the baths, and guilty pleasure food... Yes, yes and yes!!

We do frequently travel with our three hooligans, and it's great. Hotel rooms are awesome. Someone else always cooks, changes the linens, and vacuums the crumbs off the floor, daily.

And if I think of #7, I may start weeping on my keyboard. Child 2 of 3 has TERRIBLE timing... Absolutely terrible. *sigh* *sniffle*

As the mother of two-out-of-three kids with food allergies, I miss not only eating what I want when I want, but also not having to do a mental inventory of all the ingredients in each mouthful of food to judge whether or not my nursling will have a reaction. (sigh)

Just in case you was a-wondering, the song is Marianne Faithful's "Ballad of Lucy Jordan" and happy little ditty it ain't...For me, I'd add being able to talk to adults about something not involving bedtime routines, eating habits, school... etc. and going to the cinema and not watching an animated film (even if I loved Madagascar 2 and Bolt)...Hang in there - it DOES get better (my daughters are now 7 and nearly 5)!

Don't worry. The kids grow up and you get to do all those things again. And, take it from me, you appreciate them all the mooooooorrrrrre.Hummm, maybe this is why I'm in the running for a Bad Grandmother award.

My list would be the same except i would add "go out more" in any capacity, from fine dining to just going to a movie or the pub or just wasting a whole day window shopping and drinking lattes. i miss that. I miss being able to go out and fritter time away however i want, whenever i want, with no real purpose.

I think you have a pretty good solid list here. I am not a drinker so I would not be getting buzzed at lunch or having the hangover but the rest is awesome. Another thing I really miss is being able to have a reading jag where I spend all day in bed reading only emerging to eat the occasional meal. I used to do that during summer break when I was in high school. Can't do that at all now.

Okay, so, my husband are trying right this very month for our first. And you're scaring me! :-) Intellectually, I know all of this. However, I really value my sleep and alone time, and books...oh, books. I just keep telling myself that I will value my time with my little one more. Ah hell, I'm realistic. I know it won't be MORE necessarily, but maybe they'll equal out :-)

I am not one much for travel, even though I have done my fair share. But now that we have a son, we do take a week to ourselves. It usually revolves around finding a new house to move to, but still. My sister takes him and we are free to lounge around and play video/computer games until we pass out. It's sweet. :)

I agree with these. Alone time is the best. But funny thing is, even when I get alone time it some how still revolves around my kids. Going shopping ALONE, what do I need to get for the kids, do they need diapers, are we out of formula...? The joys of being a mother.

If I were you HBM, I'd take your little one and bring her in on the spicy raisin cheese. It could be your very own little secret from the boys in the house. Plus just think of how much easier it will be if she enjoys it with you. Maybe not EVERYTIME, but sometimes. She'll LOVE it.

I'd add to the list: Enjoy less dishes. Now that we have 2 kids it's unbelievable how MANY MANY dishes they create. Before kids, I hardly did the dishes once a week. Now they need to be done everyday.

Get in the car and drive without arranging child care or buckling someone into a car seat. Ditto with arriving and departing a store. Multi-ditto when running errands and making a bazillion stops. I'm all about safety, but the buckling and unbuckling and rebuckling has brought to mind many creative uses of drive-through services previously unknown.

While I absolutely agree with this list, will I be ousted if I admit none of these things bothered me when my kid was little? And I was on my own with him! Maybe because I didn't have him until I was 40 and felt I'd already had plenty of time to do all these things (although I never really laid around and watched T.V. even before being a mom) But I really do feel for moms who DO miss these things. Peace.

The thing I miss most is using the bathroom by MYSELF for longer than 34 seconds or without some crying child pounding on the door. However, the runner up wish would be to not only have sex whenever we wanted but being able to have it WHERE we wanted. Nothing kills the mood faster than having to ask "Hey, did you lock the bedroom door?"

ha! Boy did this post bring back memories. I became a single parent when my son was 8 months old and the hardest part for me was getting up at 6:30am on the weekends (I am not a morning person...nope, not at all). I was thrilled when he was old enough to fix his own cereal in the morning.

Now he's 19 and in the Air Force. I have all the time in the world to do those things and all I want is to have to get up at 6:30 on Saturday morning and snuggle up to that baby goodness. sigh....

"Spicy cheese raisins" I love it. Can't tell you how many times I've had to answer " mmfh nuffing" when asked by me 3 year old what I was eating as it wouldn't matter what I told her because the child is a bottomless pit and would eatt anything and eveything if I let her.

The only I'd add would be a nanny or a spouse even to get the little ones off to schoolin the mornings becuase that whole coffee & paper thing while enjoying quiet is soooo far back I can barely remember it.

GOD.YES. Miss all those things. but then, also love the small warm body of my Bun and the girl my Pumpkinpie is becoming, so I guess it's a wash in the end. But it would be nice if the wash came with more sleep, for sure.

I would pretend I was male and sit in the bathroom for an hour each time I had to poo. Once you have kids you only get a short amount of time in the bathroom and you always, always, always have an audience.

And I love your number 9. My daughter hates mustard and whenever I'm eating something I don't want to share, I tell her it has mustard in it. Works like a charm!

It's all so true. I also miss listening to my musical picks when driving in the car. Instead, I have to hear Elmo's Hot Hot Hot and Dance over and over and over. Moreover, the darn songs get stuck in my head and I keep hearing them all day.

Forget the cruise, I am so thrilled with the idea of laying in bed and getting to be lazy. One smallish detail though, if/when the number of children in my home has been significantly reduced or they are all away (this treat happens almost never, as in twice in the past 12 years) I find that I feel like I must use that time to tackle all the housekeeping things that have been bothering me, so I'd like to kick that unvacation off with a laundry service and a cleaning lady.

We just moved across the country. During our two week adventure, I got sick. One night, after we arrived here, but still stuck i a hotel, my husband and son got stuck at our friends house due to an ice storm. I had the hotel room all to myself. And I was too sick to really enjoy it. But I also think the whole night to myself is the only thing that kept me from slipping off the deep end. Parenthood is on-call 24/7 and even more so during a move. I would love a week or so, by myself, to read and sleep and commune with nature. I miss the quiet.

If you're so inclined, you should try to have some freaky-deaky no-strings group sex when you are still single and childless. Because once you are married and got kids in tow 24/7, no way in hell are you going to ever be in a bar at the end of the night with two equally gorgeous guys hitting on you, and you can't wink at your girlfriend and take all of them home to play. Ain't happening EVER AGAIN. So take the chance while you can!

I just discovered this blog. I don't even know you, but I love you already. Being a mother is so wonderful yet so horrible some days. I have 4 sons who grew up to be wonderful men. I love then dearly - there is less than 6 years between the youngest and the oldest. When they were small, my mother sent my younger (unmarried) brothers to visit to try to nudge them into having children. They both went home saying that my kids were great but that they now understood they might NEVER want their own. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry.

I agree with Geeklady, there's never enough time for games!!! :) So basically all that's left is watch my husband play (only on weekends) when the baby is up while trying to entertain her as well.. not a very good quality time I should say... Sleep was also on my list until the baby started letting me sleep in till VERY late almost every morning. I can only be grateful for this as I know if/when we have another one it won't be that easy!!! :))

RE: cookie dough - we make our own, roll them into logs (parchment paper yay!) and freeze them. Then every so often take out a log, slice it into "cookies" that are bite sized, toss them into a small ziplock bag in the freezer door and when I've a need I open the door, pop one into my mouth, and nobody's the wiser!"What you eating, Mommy?""mmemmemmm;MMhphh!" (translate: "sorry dear, can't talk with food in my mouth")

i like all those things you've listed, but maybe because i'm coming up for tenure in a year? what i want is to be abso-fucking-lutely free to work my very favorite hours: 8am-noon and 3pm-7pm. guess which hours are just absolutely not possible for me to work? 8am-10, and 5pm-7.

i want my whim-work time back! you know, for like, a week. just for a break ...

While all of these are true, and I would second any of them in a heartbeat, one of the things I miss most is music. I don't buy the music I want to, I don't go see the bands I love. These days I have neither the opportunity (what with living in the 'burbs and having to hire a babysitter) nor the the money (see: diapers) to consume music the way I used to. I can't even keep Rolling Stone magazine around. It causes too much longing.

This was a great post for me, because I am 8 weeks pregnant and so thankful for my freedom to take naps after work and on weekends while I am in the 1st trimester fatigue stupor. It has crossed my mind more than once that this would just not be possible with a small child at home. I will be sure to enjoy every minute!!

OMG!!1 hahahahaha catherine this is the funniest post you have ever written....and ITS ALL TRUE!!!.SONG YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT the ballad of lucy jordan BY marianne faithful.and between you and me i would take the week of lazy indulgence over vacation and i would want my hubby with me to indulge in lots of number 7!!!!! I DON'T DRINK VERY OFTEN SO INSTEAD OF ENJOYING HANGOVER WILL STUFF MYSELF SILLY ON VERY EXPENSIVE CHOCOLATE DARK OF COURSE.....

I know Paris didn't rate too highly in the comments anyway (how can it when pitted against the prospect of sleep), but just in case anyone was starting to form a yearning: I've been across Paris in a cab and although it was definitely an experience(!), it was not a place you could get the most out of a sports car. In fact, I wouldn't want to drive any car not already well dented and scratched in Paris...especially around the Arc de Triomphe!

oh yah, just being able to leave the house with whatever you have on and maybe a wallet or just grab your bag. not running all around the house at the last minuet searching for the sippy cup and the car he HAS to have for the drive or the older one asking if he can wear his ripped up sweats and then finally getting out of the house and getting half way there and realizing you still forgot your phone. or how about being on time for ANYTHING.

Really? This is a humorous, tongue-in-cheek post aimed at busy and harried moms who love their kids, but are able to laugh at themselves and their lives. You need to be hating and snarky about this kind of a post??

Also, FYI, “whoa is me” would mean “slow down is me,” as in “whoa” the direction one gives a horse. I believe you were after “woe is me,” anon? Although, “whoa is me” is perhaps a better suited sentiment to the demanding and fast-paced lives of moms.

When I was the mom of littles, what I missed most was the joy of thinking creative thoughts. I just did not get a chance to think a thought from beginning to end. It just never seemed that I could think in a straight line with all the interruptions. That is one of my biggest joys now. My children are all grown up. I love what they have become. I also love thinking and daydreaming again.

This is a great list and keep the faith -- you can reinstate many of these activities when your kids are in school all day, for instance drinking and napping. Or at least Bossy does these things. What?

Another one to add to the list... enjoy long flights to the absolute fullest. Have a glass of wine (maybe 4), buy lots of trashy magazines, read the chick-lit novel you've been mocking for the last 6 months, watch romcom movies and laugh out loud. Enjoy it because seriously, flying with babes has to be high up there on the list of life's most anxiety-inducing activities.

Brunch. I really really miss brunch. The kind where you spread the newspaper out on the table and bother your brunch companion by reading out articles in the section that he didn't get to fast enough.

BUT, I have to say that as a single mum, I still get to do a lot of things on the list, simply because The Mook is with her dad 50% of the time. Sad, but true...I have more solo time as a single mum than I did as part of a couple.

Of course, there is an alternative. I plan to do all these things and more before having children, because, get this - I'm not having any! Quite frankly the more blogs I read of parents, the less inclined I am to ever change my mind about that.

Excellent post! I used to read articles by Moms saying, "Now remember to take 15 minutes each day for yourself", and snort - Huh? 15 minutes? I couldn't even wrap my brain around it. I had my first child at 36 in 12/06 and I have only had ONE night of adult fun since!

I want to go to Applebees (don't laugh, it's all we have here) and drink Chardonnay all Sunday like we used to! I LOVE my kids and wouldn't go back for the world, but a mini-vacay would be Heaven.

-Taking the baby for a drive so she'll sleep, parking, and quietly reading in the car while she naps.-Not having to protect baby from rampaging and possibly jealous toddler.-Not having to incessantly remove older kid's choking-hazard toys from baby area-Not having to coordinate nap schedules-Being able to shop--I shudder to think about grocery shopping with 2-Being able to give baby undivided attention

Whatever you define as pampering - do it! Go shopping, get a manicure or pedicure (or both!), read celebrity gossip magazines. Pampering quickly drops to last on the priority list once you have little ones to care for!

Thank you for giving me an excuse to indulge in all my wonderful single life habits! I sometimes wonder if I'm too lazy and slovenly but now I know I'm just taking full advantage of the pre-baby period. Let's hope that all of last night's condoms did their job...

2. Having a Bath/Shower alone? I would settle for going to the bathroom alone and finishing in one go without having to stop and yell at people and tell other people where things are and wipe DVDs that are scratched and won't play and - you get the idea.

3. Naps?How about just falling asleep at the end of the day at whatever time I want to. Without having to do ANYTHING for anybody else before I can.

The other day I was counting the minutes until 8pm, when my 9 month old and 3 year old were in bed so I could enjoy a Cadbury Creme Egg unmolested. Because that's something a 3 year old shouldn't see - or eat!

So, so true! I do notice I rarely fantasize about foreign travel these days but do often fantasize about time spent alone, taking baths, reading books, going on solo contemplative walks. I keep telling people I wish there was a sleep bank that gave credit lines because I would pay almost anything for 10 straight hours of sleep.